Pritzker’s BUILD Plan is necessary for Illinois housing

Illinois should follow in the footsteps of other states by passing reforms that will make it easier and cheaper to build housing.

Passing Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s BUILD Plan is crucial for delivering on his campaign promise to increase affordability in Illinois.

Illinois faces a shortage of 142,000 homes, according to a recent report from the University of Illinois. To meet its growing demand, Illinois needs an estimated 227,000 new units over the next five years.

In the meantime, the shortage has made housing more expensive. Since February 2019, home prices have jumped nearly 50%. And according to a report from ConsumerAffairs, rental increases in Chicago and central Illinois are some of the highest in the nation.

To reverse this trend, Illinois needs to start building more homes. That requires loosening the government restrictions that have artificially depressed production.

Enter: the BUILD Plan.

The BUILD Plan refers to a slate of bills currently being discussed in Springfield that reduce government regulations that interfere with property rights and development across the state. They include:

1. Setting deadlines for permit reviews and inspections so housing projects can’t be indefinitely stalled by bureaucracy, and letting builders hire third-party reviewers when cities miss those deadlines (SB 4063)
2. Allowing more homes on residential lots above a certain size such as duplexes, fourplexes, and cottage clusters (SB 4060)
3. Reducing mandatory parking minimums that force builders to devote land and money to extra parking instead of homes (SB 4064)
4. Allowing multi-family properties up to six stories tall to have one instead of two stairwells, making it easier to build apartments on smaller lots and making it more affordable (SB 4061)
5. Allowing homeowners to build accessory dwelling units on their property (SB 4071)
6. Requiring impact fees to be calculated using a transparent statewide formula so that unpredictable or inflated charges can’t make housing more expensive (SB 4062)

This plan doesn’t mean that a developer can no longer choose to build a parking lot with one stall for each resident or a McMansion on a 10,000 square foot lot. Rather, it leaves that choice up to the developer, removing the prescriptions from the government that have been limiting housing supply and driving up costs in Illinois.

The biggest pushback has come from local government leaders, who see the legislation as a means of undercutting their authority in land use decisions. But when local government discretion creates an opaque system that stifles the production of needed housing, it’s the responsibility of the state to step in and re-establish equilibrium.

By passing this legislation, Illinois would be following in the footsteps of other states that have shown this kind of reform to be successful. Florida, Arizona, Virginia and recently Idaho have all demonstrated that state level reforms in housing can hit the reset button on otherwise complicated local processes. The Florida Housing Coalition reported 89 proposed projects using the law’s land-use mandate through February 2025, showing developers respond when the state limits local obstacles and streamlines approvals. And in Arizona, the Permit Freedom Act has reduced permitting and development times by as much as 17.7%. Similar progress is expected in Virginia and Idaho.

The BUILD Plan isn’t state government overreach. It’s the state peeling back the overreach that has been exercised at the local level and reaffirming property rights. That’s the kind of action Illinois needs if it’s going to grow.